BENTONVILLE, Ark. — The 2025 Great American Conference Softball Championship has finally come to a close and for the first time since 2016, the final team left standing are the Southern Arkansas University Muleriders! The Blue and Gold made it to their fourth-straight GAC Championship game and have finally reclaimed the title for the first time in nine years.
The Muleriders gained their third GAC Tournament title after the unit defeated the Oklahoma Baptist Bison 4-1 with superb play by the Blue and Gold defense to hold one of the conference's top offensive units.
Starting in the circle for the Muleriders for the third day in a row was Brinson Rogers as the senior from Statesboro, Georgia threw her third-consecutive complete game and allowed no earned runs with just three hits and one walk. In the 7.0 innings pitched for Rogers, she was responsible for the fanning five batters and has now accumulated for 285 strikeouts this season.
Three Mulerider batters recorded multiple hits off of the Bison pitchers, and those three included Regan Dillon (3-3), Kelsie Adams (2-4), and Savannah Clausen (3-4). Dillon's and Clausen's three hits led the team, but Clausen was also responsible for a pair of runs scored that allowed the Muleriders to extend their lead.
Southern Arkansas started the scoring early as with two runners on base, Kelsie Adams tripled to right field to score America Rubio and take the 1-0 lead.
For the first time this weekend, Rogers trotted out to the circle in the bottom half of the inning as Southern Arkansas was the visiting team via coin toss. The change in schedule was no problem for the senior as she saw just one batter get on base due to a walk.
The Muleriders kept the pace up with the bats in the top of the second with Clausen leading off the inning with a bunt to reach first base safely. After the first out of the half inning, Payton Owens tripled to right field to score Clausen. Cassidy Lear then stepped to the plate and reached first on a fielder's choice and then advanced to second after Owens was throw out in a chase down from third to home. Back to the top of the lineup, Regan Dillon singled up the middle to score Lear and obtain the 3-0 lead heading to the bottom of the inning.
After a quick three-up and three-down bottom half of the second, the Blue and Gold came back out swinging after two early outs. Savannah Clausen recorded her second hit of the afternoon and was then scored for the second time after Jenna Huey doubled through the left side, 4-0.
From then on, the contest became a pitching duel and saw no scoring until the bottom half of the seventh when the Bison showed the most signs of life that they had all day. Looking to pull off another miraculous seventh inning after doing so the night before against Southern Nazarene, OBU got two runners on quickly after the group got a runner on with a fielding error and would then have runners in scoring position with a double to right center field. The group finally got on the board with a sacrifice fly, 4-1, but the effort proved to not be enough for the Bison to overcome the deficit as the next batter lined out and the one to follow would ground out to second base with Owens throwing the runner out at first to Huey.
Four players from Southern Arkansas were named to the 2025 GAC All-Tournament team lead by Regan Dillon who claimed the tournament's Most Valuable Player title with her weekend after going 5-6 and was walked four times over the three games. Dillon was responsible for plating one run and accounted for nine putouts.
Also being named to the All-Tournament list was Savannah Clausen who had her biggest day of the tournament in today's championship game. Another name for the All-Tourney group was Jenna Huey who recorded two of Southern Arkansas' three home runs over the weekend and was the reason for the unit tying the game with Harding after being down 1-0 late in the ballgame. The final Mulerider announced to the list, but definitely not the least, was Brinson Rogers. The senior pitched 21.0 innings over the weekend and surrendered just five runs and only three earned. She was responsible for fanning 16 batters against some the conference's most heavy hitters and allowed a hitting percentage of just .202 with 15 hits allowed over the course of 74 at-bats.
Southern Arkansas will play on Thursday, May 8 with location and opponent still to be determined. The NCAA Regional Tournaments consist of two four-team double-elimination regionals hosted by the one and two seeds. The winners of the four-team regional tournaments square off in a super-regional at the site of the highest seed with a trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee and the NCAA DII College World Series on the line.
